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Nine men, all serving the last of their prison terms in a halfway house, were charged Thursday with defrauding the state unemployment fund of $160,000 in benefits, the San Diego County District Attorney’s Office announced.
The arrests and charges are part of a larger investigation into prison inmates across the state who are suspected of defrauding the program of as much as $2 billion. The scam was uncovered in December, and locally District Attorney Summer Stephan has said that inmates at both the local jails and the Richard J. Donovan state prison in Otay Mesa ripped off the state of at least $5 million.
Christina Solano, the sister of the slain L.A. County deputy, is outraged over proposed justice reform.
San Diego County s top prosecutor is rescinding permission for Los Angeles County s newly elected district attorney to prosecute an alleged cop killer and suspected armed robber after the D.A. refused to bring special charges against the defendant.
In a Monday letter, District Attorney Summer Stephan criticized George Gascon, who was elected to office in Los Angeles County on a platform of prosecution reform that now has roiled law enforcement officials and some crime victims, FOX 11 of Los Angeles reported. I do not want our San Diego county cases to be connected to any publicly-announced special directive that dismisses special circumstances and serious gun use allegations where your stated reason is in the interest of justice, when clearly the facts of this defendant’s violent offenses show it is not, Stephan wrote.
In Los Angeles, Nelson is charged with two counts of murder for allegedly shooting off-duty Los Angeles County sheriff s Deputy Joseph Gilbert Solano, 50, in Alhambra and 31-year-old Dmitry Alekseyevich Koltsov in downtown Los Angeles. The shootings occurred hours apart from each other on June 10, 2019.
Nelson a former St. George, Utah, resident is also charged with attempted murder and robbery for separate incidents in L.A. County.
In Stephan s letter, she wrote that her office agreed early last year to let the L.A. County district attorney prosecute Nelson for the San Diego County robberies with the understanding that he would face a maximum possible sentence of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole if convicted.
SAN DIEGO
A Superior Court judge has again decided to close to the public a hearing involving a man classified by the state as a sexually violent predator seeking release from a state hospital so he can live under supervision in San Diego County.
Judge David Gill agreed to close a Dec. 16 evidentiary hearing for Steven Dejarlais, who was convicted of rapes in 1994 and 1996, according to the District Attorney’s Office.
Dejarlais, 52, is asking to be granted conditional release from a state hospital were he wasconfined after serving time in prison. The hearing is expected to delve into his treatment at the hospital, and include details about his medical and psychological health.